


A reluctant brother, an unwilling sister

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bullying, Canonical Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Family Issues, Gen, Hurt Billy Hargrove, Pre-Canon, Pre-Season/Series 02, Step-parents, Step-siblings, Strained Friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 05:05:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19761172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: She couldn’t live with herself knowing Billy got hurt because she wanted to play games at the stupid arcade and she couldn’t even make sure he was alright afterwards.So, despite everything inside her screaming not to, Max rested her hand against the wood and knocked.





	A reluctant brother, an unwilling sister

They hadn’t been in town long, maybe a couple of days at most, when Max discovered the arcade filled with neon signs and blinking lights and all the things she loved and missed from her old home. It was calling to her like a beacon, and she felt the desperate need to explore the new town, anyhow.

The only problem was Billy’s dad standing in the way with one hand on her shoulder and the other in a tense fist in his pocket, her mother standing idle at the kitchen doorway in her white and pink apron and the confusion she felt gnawing at her bones. “Where do you think you’re going, Max?”

“The uh, the arcade.” She wouldn’t say that she was totally afraid, but she was caught off guard. Neil never had that look on his face when he looked at Max, or the chip to his words when he spoke to her. That was something he reserved for Billy. “I thought maybe I could explore a bit, meet some new people before my first day of school.”

Neil shook his head and scoffed as if she’d just asked if she could go to a boy’s house and sleep the night, or burn down the church. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Just stay here until Billy can be bothered taking you out. I’ve heard strange things about this town and I don’t like you walking anywhere. As for the kids, you can meet them at school. That’s where they’re all supposed to be.”

“But-”

“Don’t argue with Neil, sweetheart,” her mother said gently from the front door, her eyes sympathetic, her nails tapping on the wooden doorframe. Her hair fell over her shoulder as she tilted her head. “He’s only doing what he thinks is best for the family.”

Max looked between her complacent mother and her strangely determined step-father. She was so close to the door, one step backwards and she could place her spine against it, but she couldn’t go far with Neil’s hand on her shoulder. “What if I asked Billy to take me? It would only be for an hour at the most, I’d even be home before mum started dinner.”

“I said _no_ , Max.”

His voice sent a cold, painful shiver down Max’s spine. If it was fear, she wasn’t sure, but it was something she had never experienced before. There was something tight and coiling in Neil, like a hungry viper, and it was so similar to what Max saw in Billy every single day but so much worse. She decided best not to push him. The hand on her shoulder was getting tighter, almost painfully so, as if begging her to challenge him.

She knew what challenging him looked like. The price showed up on Billy’s skin in bruises and welts. “Oh,” she lowered her head. “Ok. Maybe another time.”

But then someone much larger than her was shoving her out of the way, towards the door, and Neil’s hand was removed from her shoulder to be replaced by Billy’s hand on her chest. Neil’s whole mood shifted as he looked in Billy’s eyes, and without seeing them for herself, Max knew that Billy’s own eyes would be an equally angry mirror. “Go, squirt,” Billy said, his voice even, but there was a wave of underlying anger to it. “Have a good time. Do you need money?”

“Uh, no.” Max wasn’t surprised that he asked. He would have given her anything she needed if it meant leaving him alone. “I’m good, thanks.” Quieter, she asked, “Billy, are you sure…?”

“Go,” was all he said and Max was out the door and picking up her skateboard and rolling down the hill as quickly as she could to avoid the hurricane that was about to erupt inside her house.

When she got home, not the whole hour that she wanted but way before dinner like she’d promised, she was not surprised to see Neil outside in the backyard with his hands folded over his chest and his eyes closed. There was a melting bag of peas on the ground. Her mother was flittering between making dinner in the kitchen and watching her soap opera in the lounge room. None of them heard her come in.

What she did notice, however, the complete lack of all things Billy from her surroundings, and she worried for a painful heartbeat moment that he had gotten into his Camaro and driven away while she was out, and that worried her more than she would like to admit. Sure, Billy was an asshole, but he could take care of himself. She had no reason to be worried.

She dropped her skateboard by the door and stuck her head into the kitchen where her mother was stirring a pot. “Uh, mum is Billy here?”

Her mother turned to her with a smile, one that always made a flutter in Max’s chest, and for a moment she forgot all about her worries. “I’m not sure dear. Maybe he’s in the garage? I haven’t seen him for a while, honestly.”

“Oh, alright,” Max smiled politely and backed away, leaving her mother to her cooking and her soap opera. She did, in fact, check the garage, but that was so she could make sure Billy’s car was still there. She knew that if Billy himself was there, music would be blaring from the speakers of the car. Thankfully, the car was still parked safely in the garage, which meant that Billy was still in the house.

If Billy wasn’t in the garage, then there weren’t many more places that he could be. If Neil was in the backyard and her mother was in the kitchen, then Billy was either holed up in the bathroom for the foreseeable future or seeking the solace of himself and his thoughts in his room. When she pressed her ear up against the bathroom door and couldn’t hear the water running, Max tentatively made her way down the hall to Billy’s room and waited.

She wasn’t quite sure what she was going there, staring at the wood as if it had personally offended her, wondering if it was worth it to knock. Maybe she should just walk away and pretend none of today ever happened. But she couldn’t. Not after Billy had let her go to the arcade at the expense of pain. The expense he thought he deserved, pain Neil gave him gladly. Never when Max was around, but she knew it happened despite his best efforts. She couldn’t live with herself knowing Billy got hurt because she wanted to play games at the stupid arcade and she couldn’t even make sure he was alright afterwards.

So, despite everything inside her screaming not to, Max rested her hand against the wood and knocked.

Billy’s muffled grunt from inside the room was immediate. “Fuck off,”

Max didn’t know why, but she did the exact opposite, opening the door and making her way into the darkness of the room. She couldn’t see Billy but she knew he was in there. Why she walked in, she couldn’t tell you. She just always hated knowing someone was hurting because of her, and apparently that also extended to her asshole of a step-brother.

She quietly closed the door behind her, holding onto the handle and twisting it slowly until she heard the click of the lock falling into the latch. The room was dark, the curtains drawn and no light spilling in from under the door. Once her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw the human-sized blob curled up on the bed. “Billy?” She called tentatively into the silence, her voice oddly loud. Billy didn’t react. “Are you alright?”

It was almost as if all the fight had left Billy in the short hour she’d been gone because Max knew that by now he would be leaping out of bed and shoving her roughly out of his room with a growl and a threat. But he didn’t move, only rested on the bed with his arms over his chest and his eyes closed. “Go away, Max. I’m not in the mood.”

But Max didn’t listen. She didn’t know why she didn’t listen, every nerve in her body was screaming at her to run, but instead, she took another step into the room. “Uh,” she began hesitantly, wringing her hands in front of her. “I just wanted to thank you. For today. For letting me go to the arcade.”

Billy snorted. “It’s fine. No need to thank me. I just couldn’t stand to look at you any longer.”

If Max hadn’t realized that something was wrong before, she defiantly did now. So far, there wasn’t any screaming or bullying or anything that Max was used to from Billy. Hell, he was letting her in his _room_ , albeit reluctantly. “Right,” she pushed her hair out of her face. “Uh, I won these for you. At the arcade. They had a ticket machine where we could win prizes depending on the highest score. I thought… I don’t know. Here.”

She walked in a little further and pulled the prizes out of her pocket to put on his bedside table before she darted out of reaching range. A keychain with a praying angel wearing a set of devil horns and a patch for his jacket of one of the bands that she recognised him listening to. He looked up for the first time to glance at them, and that’s when Max saw the bruise around his eye. When he reached for them, one of his fingers was at a funny angle, and he was holding his side with his other arm.

He didn’t say thank you, but Max knew that he was grateful. He didn’t tell her to bugger off, anyhow.

Deciding to test her luck a little more, Max made her way over to where he kept his stereo and riffled through his collection of CDs. Billy watched her but didn’t comment. He was obviously too tired to care.

Max lowered herself to the floor while she decided, gently turning the albums over in her hands. She couldn’t really read them in the dark, but she recognised some of the art on the covers and tried to look for something she recognised from Billy’s car.

She found a Twisted Sister album that she remembered, the light blue background and crazy looking person in pink and black on the front stood out to her even in the dark, and Billy didn’t try to stop her when she opened it and put the CD in the slot. She flicked through the songs until she came across one she recognised and liked and turned it up loud enough that she could drown out any of Billy’s complaints.

After a while, she could hear him start to hum quietly along to the song _“we’re not gonna take it”,_ and they sat in the dark together comfortably, something they hadn’t done… ever, really, and Max couldn’t say she didn’t enjoy it now that she knew what it was like.

Max knew that Billy was hurting. Knew that sometimes, he didn’t sleep in case his father came in, and if he did, he wanted to be ready. Sometimes, he didn’t eat, because he didn’t want anyone to comment on it. He was never home when Neil was home because that was just bad for everyone, Billy most of all, but Max hated when he was out for hours after dark.

When the song was over, Max turned down the volume. Not all the way, but enough that the song became background sound. Billy was smiling under his arm. “Turns out your taste in music doesn’t suck after all.”

“I take notes. I know what you like,” Max wanted this friendly moment between them to last forever, but sadly, she knew that was never going to happen. “I just… I’m sorry you got hurt because of me. I wish it didn’t happen. I shouldn’t have gone.” When Billy didn’t reply, Max decided to push her luck a little bit more. “Why did you do it?”

Billy didn’t reply right away, but his answer was definite and sure. “Because like it or not, we’re family now, and I’ve got to look out for my little sister and make sure I protect her.”

The silence after told Max that he had nothing more to say and that his patience and tolerance of her being in his room was starting to wear thin. So she nodded to herself and stood. “Alright. Thank you. I’ll uh… I’ll call you when dinner is ready.”

She was about to make her way out of the room when Billy cleared his throat. “Max?”

“Yeah?”

“Turn the music back up, will you?”

Smiling quietly to herself, Max turned back to the stereo and turned the volume back up to full before she left the room and closed the door behind her, plunging the room into darkness once again.

At the dinner table, Billy was firmly stabbing at his food and not eating, as always, Neil was looking at him with an unreadable expression, as always, and her mother was pretending not to notice anything, as always. Max had resolutely had enough of it and cleared her throat. “Billy?” She asked into the awkward silence and he grunted in reply. “I was wondering if you could take me to the skate park tomorrow? Or we could go and watch a movie at the cinema?”

“You just want to get out of the house, don’t you,” Max’s mother smiled sadly at her, but understandingly, and Max nodded eagerly.

Neil cleared his throat. His knuckles were bruised almost as badly as Billy’s face was. “I’m not sure that’s quite a good idea…” his voice had an undertone of a threat to them and Max sunk in her chair.

He wasn’t able to finish speaking when Billy turned to her, a glint in his eye and a cruel curl to his lip, but Max felt like, for the first time in a while, it wasn’t directed at her. “Sure,” he said and he took satisfaction from the way Neil spluttered in anger. “It’s about time I got out of this bloody house for a bit. Hunt out the town. But you know the rule- if you’re not back in time…”

“I’m walking home,” Max finished with an eager nod. Billy winked at her and turned back to his food. “Thanks, Billy.”

For the first time in forever, Max felt like maybe everything could work out between her and Billy, and hoped against hope that it would.

**Author's Note:**

> I havn't watched Stranger Things (yet, I'm planning on watching it with my mum) but I've just got a lot of emotions about Billy that refused to go away, so enjoy this shit show and I hope nobody gets mad at me for this, I don't really know them but I know how I think they are so that's all I'm going off of. I've seen gifsets on Tumblr and snippets on youtube- I'm not completely in the dark.


End file.
